once upon a time
by saunatonttu
Summary: Once upon a time, a prince and a commoner meet and fall in love. Another fairy tale blossoms. Rated M for passing sexual themes. 10051.


**title: **once upon a time

**rating:** M, for sexual themes that pass quickly.

**characters:** Byakuran, Irie Shouichi, others.

**summary:** Once upon a time, a prince and a commoner meet and fall in love. Another fairy tale blossoms.

**notes:** I've been working on this some time now, but I'm not sure about the result. However, I do love the set-ups some fairy tales have. They're brilliant in their cliche-ness.

Also, another lengthy oneshot from me. I'm sorry I'm incapable of sorting these into chapters.

* * *

**once upon a time**

_it's not a tale worthy of remembering_

* * *

Once upon a time...

Or more like twice upon a time... or more...

...there was a young boy with hair like angel's wings – just as soft, fluttery and beautiful to eyes as those feather wings attached to the most beautiful angels' backs.

This peculiarly mesmerizing hair had a partner – a pair of violet eyes that peered up at everything and everyone with dull curiosity unrivaled by anything.

White hair and violet eyes were certainly a striking combination, and the boy was surrounded by adorers from all over the kingdom and even outside it; he was the Crown Prince and his status itself merited him countless admirers from afar lands even if he were to look like a Leviathan.

...The monster, not Levi A Than, who happened to be one of the Royal Guards of the kingdom beyond the eastern border.

But let's not digress.

The boy was graced not only with remarkable eyes and hair that rivaled the pure white clouds but also with slender body-build and soft, tender skin that most women were ready to kill for to have.

In other words, he was an adorable child, even though his eyes were dull and almost lifeless, continuously watching_ through_ people as if he was not in this world. That was a great concern for his father, the King, but no one could exactly snap the young Byakuran of Gesso's Royal Family out of his reveries when he was out of it.

Florenzo Gesso, needless to say, felt worry for his only son, who – as usual for noble children – had private tutors, maids, but no other children around to talk to or play with. Florenzo, himself, had always had his gentle elder sister (alas, they had not allowed her to ascend to the throne after their father passed away) to accompany him in his wildest games of cricket and whatnot.

His son, Byakuran, was an unlucky only child, and Florenzo – as a loving father, which was a rare thing in this world, in _any_ world – felt a thorn prickling his heart at the sight of Byakuran aimlessly wandering around the castle with a small porcelain dragon he had received as a birthday present when he had been four but not any less beautiful than now.

The eight-year-old child was often alone whenever he was not with his tutors (to whom he gave gray hairs with his pranks that were done out of nothing else than pure boredom), and if he was not in the castle, then he most likely was in the vast, green gardens of the Royal Family.

And there he was on this day as well, with his faithful but eternally silent dragon, his slender arms reaching for the delicate flowers sprouting from the ground.

His purple eyes were the brightest during the times of solitude he spent with these flowers, these splendid little plants that had a language of their own.

Byakuran's pale pink lips rose into a tiny, serene smile, an expression which his face was unused to, as his fingers played with the petals of a forget-me-not.

He was not a child that smiled a lot; he was rather serious that way, even when he pulled childish pranks on his tutors his face would remain impassive, only a weak glimmer in his purple eyes signaling his faint amusement at the adults' reactions.

A faint breeze ruffled at Byakuran's disheveled fluff of hair, and the child huffed as his long bands fell over his eyes. He was quick to sweep the strands away from his eyes, fingers combing the thick hair agitatedly, but the movements halted immediately when the faint sound of sniffling reached his ears.

Somebody was there in the gardens with him...?

Byakuran tilted his head curiously as he, naturally, went to search for the source of such a weak-sounding sniffle. It sounded like a kitten had hurt its paw or maybe its tail got caught by something...?

Much to the young prince's surprise, what waited him wasn't a kitten, but a child of his own age.

"Huh-" Byakuran stared, purple eyes wide with surprise as he stared at the sniffling, red-haired boy curiously and trying to deduce whether this was an illusion or not.

But the sniffling sounds didn't cease and the shaking form of the redhead didn't waver like weak illusions would, so Byakuran deduced that the boy was real.

Huh, it had been some time since Byakuran had met anyone of his age.

"Who are you?" Byakuran questioned, his fingers idly stroking the surface of the dragon he had carried with him. "What are you doing here? This is my father's garden." The words _and he's the King, you know _didn't need to be said.

The other boy flinched at the sudden questions, his form still shaking as he raised his head – scared green eyes meeting with Byakuran's unnaturally violet ones, and Byakuran's eyes widened at the sight of the other boy's tear-stained face.

Dull green eyes stared back at Byakuran, and the white-haired child tilted his head in amazement as he took in the pale pink-ish color of the redhead's skin.

"Um-" the sniffling boy wiped his eyes with his yukata sleeve before looking up at Byakuran again. "I..." the boy faltered, his lips twitching between a hesitant, embarrassed smile and frown. "I got separated from father... and I just found myself here..." The red-haired boy hugged his knees, the emerald yukata sliding off from his shoulders slightly.

Byakuran stared some more before bending down to the child. "You came to visit my father?"

The redhead blinked. "Father came to visit the King..." he mumbled, hand wiping the remnants of his tears. Childish stubbornness to avoid letting others see him cry, perhaps. "He told me to look for someone to play with... but I don't... know anyone here." A sniffle left his lips again, and the redhead covered his mouth with his hands – small hands with long fingers, Byakuran noted with a sickening curiosity.

Byakuran raised his own hand while he tugged for the redhead's for comparison, earning a yelp from the other boy as Byakuran brought their hands together and pressed their palms together.

"What are you-"

Byakuran observed the feeling of the warmth pressing against his palm, deciding that it was not an unpleasant feeling.

_They fit, like two puzzle pieces..._

"What's your name?"

"Eh?" the other boy flinched at the question as he fidgeted, clearly unsure why Byakuran was so fascinated by their connected hands.

"What's your name?" Byakuran repeated, his serious tone melting away and changing into a childishly happy one. "I'm Byakuran."

The green eyes widened, and he would have pulled away if Byakuran hadn't entwined their fingers to avoid that. Soft skin meeting equally soft skin.

"You're... the prince...?" the redhead blinked, intimidation flashing in the green pools, and Byakuran pouted at the reaction. All the visiting children (there weren't many) reacted that way to Byakuran...

Why did this reaction hurt so much?

"Hmhm," Byakuran hummed, flashing a practiced smile at the redhead, whose cheeks flushed at the sight.

"I'm... Irie Sho... Shouichi," the redhead finally mumbled, head lowered and eyes directed to his own yukata-covered knees to hide his evident embarrassment.

Byakuran's smile widened remarkably, and this time it was genuine. "Can I call you Shou-chan, then?" he cooed, sitting down in front of the other and disentangling their hands this time.

Shouichi blinked, the teary eyes staring into Byakuran's purple ones as he raised his head, and his cheeks darkened with scarlet color. "O-okay..."

Byakuran grinned – and for once his dragon statue lay forgotten on the ground as he played with his newfound friend for a while more.

* * *

Irie family was not a noble family, that much Byakuran learned in the coming years as he kept his eyes on the guest lists to see whether Shou-chan's family would be invited as well – that would be the only way he'd ever meet the redhead again, and he definitely wanted to see the boy with chubby cheeks and grass-green eyes.

Even if months passed by without him being able to see the other boy-

Well, it would be romantic to say that he didn't forget about Shouichi, wouldn't it?

But as life went on, he _did _forget the mesmerizing green eyes and the way their hands fit together to easily and perfectly. He forgot that childish curiosity he had held for _Shou-chan_, and instead was swept away by his studies and growing responsibilities as the crown prince.

And as time had a nasty habit of doing, years passed, and Byakuran grew – not losing a single aspect of his beauty but instead growing more striking and attention-grabbing; from an adorable child to a teenager older women awkwardly found themselves extremely attracted to.

The gift of riling people's sex drives up with a flirtatious smiles and winks combined with his looks was not wasted on Byakuran.

But not only was he beautiful in the looks department, his attitude took a turn for the worse. Teenage rebellion, one might call, and Byakuran was constantly running from the castle to wander around the city he had never been allowed to go to due to the dangers that lurked behind every corner.

Byakuran merely scoffed at the words of his fathers – he could handle himself just as well as Florenzo's most trusted guards protected him.

But it was one of the rebelling prince's trips that led him to a fated meeting with a certain redhead...

* * *

The market was as lively as it always was at midday, Byakuran noticed as he trudged down the street, his bare feet meeting the cold stones of the street as he headed for his usual place. The chattering of people buzzed in his ears hood-covered ears, and the prince turned his head slightly to look around the masses.

People-watching was always interesting for him because he could learn much from that simple act alone. The way people held themselves, their facial expressions... All of it was so honest when compared to the royal life where lies were about as expected as the sunset.

But these people were honest in everything they did – they were honest even in their ugliness, Byakuran thought to himself when his eyes gazed at the group of ruffians at the other end of the street attempting to snag a bag from an elderly lady.

Honest, cruel ugliness.

A crooked smile crossed Byakuran's face for a brief moment before it faded and turned into a mellower, gentler fake smile he was used to wearing on his face due to the many social events he was made to participate.

Slipping through the crowd with the small cape and a hood as his protection – _what fun would it be if people found out that the Prince had come from the castle? It would be a nuisance, to be honest_ – Byakuran made his way to the crack between two large estates and agilely slipped through the houses.

_Only a little more-_

The rest of the way Byakuran jogged; the street was empty and shadowed by thick oaks and their branches, thus offering the perfect camouflage.

This garden was much less extravagant than the one in his father's castle, but Byakuran preferred this one over the extravagancy and colorfulness of that garden.

The sight of white petals of anemone greeted him when he stepped into the garden through the broken wooden gate, a gentle breeze of wind twirling around him and his posture relaxed as his hands tugged down the dubious hood from his head, revealing the white, spiky fluff of hair.

Byakuran's smile widened as he inhaled, the fresh wind carrying different scents to him, before lightly stepping to the largest group of anemones.

"Ah, you keep attracting weeds~," Byakuran hummed as he inspected the ground level, hand moving to pluck the weeds off from the soil. "Such lovely things but surrounded by dirt," Byakuran murmured to himself, purple eyes closing and smile stretching his lips as he got on his knees and started to tend to the soil as the rays of sunlight filtered through the cracks of leaves of the surrounding trees.

"...Who are you?"

Byakuran wasn't startled by the unexpected voice of another male and kept his eyes on the soil instead. How unsightly for a prince, his mother would say, but since when had he cared? She was the one at fault for locking him up inside the castle in the first place; certainly he had every right to rebel against such old-fashioned treatment of one's child.

"Hmhm, just a passing flower lover?" Byakuran suggested, laughing at his own words as he tugged yet another weed from the soil. Really, such insistent little pests... trying to dirt the beauty of the anemones...

A distant memory of white petals tainted in red passed his mind, and he froze for a brief moment, no longer than a partial second.

Memories that were not his...

Byakuran's lips curved into a blank smile.

_Someone else, a pair of green eyes that shone with undiscovered brilliance-_

Byakuran blinked, purple eyes brightening from the dimness they had taken a few moments ago. _Red hair...?_ That thought, memory almost, was nostalgic, a tingling sensation in his skin like it was something he ought to remember. Something his _other _selves would remember if they were there in his stead.

And then there were the voices that always followed the visions – or flashes, rather, of memories.

"Ugh," Byakursn grunted under his breath, soil-covered fingers pressing onto the sides of his head as the pounding in his skull worsened until it felt like his skull was about to crack open from the pressure.

A touch to his shoulder – gentle and wary – distracted Byakuran from the ache, and he managed to raise his head and tilt it until his eyes caught the fiery red hair and pale pink skin that made Byakuran for some reason think of sakura petals.

Sakura petals...

"Are you alright?" the pink lips curled down in worry, and Byakuran could have laughed at the expression – because it was ridiculous for some poor peasant to be worried for his prince, right? Absolutely ridiculous.

"I'm-" Byakuran started before his eyes widened slightly when his eyes met the familiar green ones that were framed by glasses.

"_-chan!"_

His own voice, calling out...

"_-ou-chan!"_

Who?

"I'm alright," Byakuran responded airily as he released the breath he had been holding, and stood up from the soil, watching as the other teenager backed down with a wary, distrusting yet worried expression pasted on his face.

A chilly breeze went past them, and Byakuran's lilac eyes narrowed at the shudder that went through the redhead, who wrapped the thin coat more tightly around himself as though protecting himself from becoming an icicle right there and then.

Byakuran's eyes took notice of the fragile build of the teen, the almost sickening, translucent quality to his skin, and the dark, glaring rings under his vivid green eyes, and the fiery red hair messed up in a way that reminded Byakuran of his own bed hair.

The familiary of the sight was enough to baffle him, and then his innate curiosity acted up and his hand reached for the cheek of this stranger whose green eyes widened further as Byakuran's fingertips brushed against his cheekbones briefly – but the sensation was enough to make Byakuran's skin tingle all over, and that ache in his head to worsen again until it felt like a hammer was pounding his skull from within his head.

"_Shou-chan."_

"Shou...chan?"

_Shou-chan_'s eyes widened remarkably at the wheezed-out nickname, and Byakuran felt sickeningly amused by the various expressions that went through the redhead's face just at that.

"Byakuran-ouji?"

_That's not right_, Byakuran frowned to himself, dissatisfied with Shouichi's (ah, yes, that was this stranger's name...) answer, and his hand reached for Shouichi's, grasping it before instinctively entwining their fingers -

- ah, they had met before in this world, Byakuran remembered, purple eyes widening momentarily either out of surprise or something else he couldn't quite pinpoint.

Shouichi's eyes widened, cheeks flushing furiously at their entwined fingers, and his hand instinctively tried to squirm away, but Byakuran's grip was firm.

"Shou-chan," Byakuran repeated, his lips forming a genuine smile that was rarely directed at people. "It really is Shou-chan."

His hand squeezed the redhead's, comfortable warmth spreading to both of their palms – Byakuran's softer palm pressing tightly to he dry and scaly skin of Shouichi's – and the prince's smile brightened more despite the agonizing pressure in the back of his skull, which kept pulsating through his head and sending waves of pain through his brain.

Shouichi's red bangs weren't long enough to cover his eyes and didn't manage to hide the rush of complicated emotions that flickered in the expressive and deep green eyes, which made Byakuran's smile widen on his lips.

"B-byakuran-ouji, why..."

Byakuran tutted at that, lips curling into a childish pout. He never cared much for formalities... and in this case, the honorific was just plain wrong. Because the way Shouichi usually called him, in those other worlds... that were not just inside Byakuran's head, either, he was sure of that.

"Don't call me that, Shou-chan," he purred, his eyes lighting up and mirth was audible in his tone as he tugged Shouichi down. "We're friends, aren't we?"

"...T-that was just one meeting!"Shouichi protested as he nearly tripped due to the force used to pull him down to the ground, to the space next to Byakuran whose body was turned towards the anemones.

"Hmhm, but I told Shou-chan that we were friends, right?" Byakuran drawled, his lilting voice soothing and coaxing at the same time as he swiveled his body to completely face Shouichi, ignoring the patches of dirt on his clothes that cam from his previous activity.

"I remember, you know," Byakuran crooned – and he really did, now. The faint memory of a chubby-cheeked redhead with tears hanging from his eyes as he stared up at the too-serious Byakuran was becoming clearer and clearer in his mind.

The memory his child self had held dear through quite a few months – the expectation, the inexplicable need to meet Shouichi again just so that they could watch flowers again and Byakuran could explain all about the flower meanings just like back then...

Breathless from excitement, the child had explained the meanings of forget-me-nots and differently colored orchids until the redhead had told him to slow down his explanations, tears long since dried on his face.

"I... remember, too," Shouichi said warily, his cheeks a lovely shade of red as his eyes stared at their entwined hands – a look suitable for a frightened rabbit, Byakuran mused in amusement. Shouichi couldn't possibly be any older than fourteen or fifteen; a year or two younger than Byakuran at most.

"Byakuran-ou..."

Byakuran tutted, placing a finger over Shouichi's lips. "Don't call me that, Shou-chan." The name left his lips with such easiness, in such a lilting and musical tone that even Byakuran felt a little surprised despite how his usual tone was not that different from this.

"Calling you anything else would be inappropriate!" Shouichi's face contorted into an expression of dismay, lips curling down in muted disapproval as he remained carefully still. "I... I mean, it's just a show of respect and that you're higher than me and..."

The stammered words made Byakuran laugh out loud before his hand that wasn't holding Shouichi's went to the redhead's hair and ruffled the messy locks of red affectionately, at which Shouichi reacted by shuffling backwards only to fall onto his back on the grass.

Byakuran snickered, though he too was tugged forward. Nearly falling faceflat against Shouichi's lower abdomen, Byakuran crawled slightly forward away from the anemone bushes seated himself on Shouichi's other side, opposite to where he had been before.

"Call me Byakuran," Byakuran crooned as he let go of Shouichi's warm hand and brought his own over Shouichi's fiery red hair, fingers diving into the locks before working on the knots. "Just Byakuran~."

A longing sensation of normality prickled Byakuran's mind and insides as the rays of sun washed over them unevenly, patches of light hitting both their skin and clothes; this moment felt surreal for him, for the prince, for someone who had never had any normality in his life – only extravagance and long hours spent on studying the economics and military system.

He longed...

Byakuran's eyes crinkled in mirth at the deep shade of red that dusted Shouichi's cheeks either out of embarrassment or the proximity, and the tingling feeling of familiarity came back – at first creeping from the back of his mind to the front and then even causing his skin to get goose bumps, hair rising on the back of his neck at the same time.

This excitement – what was it?

"Anemones are my favorite flowers," Byakuran murmured, lips curving into a crooked smile as he pulled himself up and gave the redhead room to sit up; as much as he enjoyed messing with Shou-chan, he really was here just for the flowers.

Purple eyes shifted towards the pure white petals, a flash of gentleness quickly passing in them as he crawled (how unfitting for a prince, but in all honesty – who gives a crap?) back to the flowers. Shouichi followed suit, though less agilely.

"Anemones?" Shouichi whispered, and Byakuran grinned again at the sound of Shouichi's soft voice.

"Anemones," Byakuran confirmed as his hands plucked weeds off from the soft soil. "Which flowers do you like the best, Shou-chan?"

He could hear Shouichi's shuddering and nervous breathing and shifting movements beside him but that didn't make him turn his attention to the other. The commoner, he could say, but...

"_Shou-chan."_

Those memories... Those unreliable feelings in his chest that told him that Shouichi would be important to him one way or another in the future... Call it cheesy, but Byakuran knew Shouichi was a lot more than just a commoner or, at the very least, he _would _be more than that.

"I don't know much about flowers..." Shouichi's reserved, almost shy, voice pulled Byakuran back to the present. "...but I guess sunflowers or daisies would be my favorites."

Byakuran chuckled at the choice of flowers. Adoration and innocence, huh...?

_How fitting for Shou-chan._

* * *

Their meeting didn't turn out to be a one-time thing, much to Byakuran's absolute delight. Shouichi kept coming back to that garden, undoubtedly searching for Byakuran out of curiosity.

He had settled to call him _Byakuran-san_, though Byakuran highly disliked the honorific still; it was cold and off-putting, but his memories told him that Shouichi would always call him that, no matter the world and situation.

And he sort of liked it; the way Shouichi's lips moved when he said that name, the way his face would subconsciously brighten up at the sight of Byakuran, the way Shouichi was starting to relax in his company...

As to why Byakuran was getting so fond of his company, well... It might have something to do with how his selves in other worlds always managed to find Shou-chan and grab him to be by his side. It might have something to do with the blossoming friendship between them... or maybe it was how easy it was to forget the royal problems when he was with the commoner named Irie Shouichi.

It was the beginning of a beautiful, rosy-colored friendship.

* * *

"Byakuran-sama, where have you been going lately?"

Byakuran could hear the hidden disapproval in Kikyo's (one of his guardians, as his father had put it) voice, and had he been more willing to show his genuine feelings outwardly... he would have scoffed.

"Adventures, maybe?" Byakuran replied vaguely as he tugged at the collar of his undershirt before pulling the colorful royal uniform on, consisting of tight pants and the flashier cape-robe. Too bad that the clothing lost to Byakuran's personality in colorfulness and unpredictability, no?

It was yet another ball, and Byakuran aready felt so terribly bored; bored enough to ponder whether he should just sneak off to the garden and the anemones where Shouichi might be tending to the flowers the way Byakuran had taught him to.

He sensed the other's frown; Kikyo often did that when Byakuran replied like that, after all. The pale lips curled into a nearly condescending smile as he adjusted the cufflinks on his shirt absently, mind wandering off to one of the only sources of genuine delight in his life as his purple eyes stared at the picture reflected from the large, gold-framed mirror standing against his crimson-painted corner.

_How utterly ridiculous, _Byakuran mused to himself as his lips curved into the customary expression he wore nowadays no matter where he went; that empty, meaningless smile that everyone adored him for.

_Such frivolous parties that serve no purpose..._

Byakuran wanted to see Shouichi in that garden of anemones, and that want was by far stronger than his desire for cheap entertainment these parties were sure to offer; a good case of flirting and dancing and being the charming piece of scum his title entitled him to be – not that he didn't enjoy being that scum, because he did. Too much, even. With charming tone and prickly words, it was so easy to break some spirits.

Byakuran found that far more enjoyable than the long hours of studying he was still expected to have per day. Dancing with young, innocent women whose faces were alight with joy as their bodies pressed against his almost promiscuously._ Earthly desires_, he often mused to himself in the midst of twirling his dance partner around the marble floor, _can get so ugly._

"Byakuran-sama, this is no joking matter." Kikyo's tone was nowhere near as reprimanding as Shouichi's would have been, Byakuran thought to himself as he finally turned and cast his teal-haired and plainly dressed guardian a sidelong glance with his almost sparkling purple eyes.

Shouichi's warm green eyes came to his mind, and Byakuran's expression softened to a level of a genuine smile – which seemed to befuddle Kikyo a lot, considering the furrow between his brows and the taut, clenched jaw.

"Who said I was joking, Kikyo-chan?" Byakuran crooned all too happily, his voice rising to its usual lilting tones as he smoothed his dress shirt a little bit before taking the jacket resting on the back of the mahogany chair and finished his little dress-up with it. "I have just been strolling around~." Yet the burns he got from the sun spoke otherwise.

"Byakuran-sama..." The lines of Kikyo's face grew tense as the muscles rippled and tensed, lips pursing and brows knitting in a show of confusion that amused Byakuran a little too much.

"Don't worry, alright~? Just don't tell father anything about it, yeah?" Byakuran suggested as he reached Kikyo's crouched form and played with the strands of teal hair with his hand. Soft, long strands of hair that slipped through his fingers with no resistance.

Byakuran thought back to Shouichi's messy and very knotty hair that would always resist his fingers' movements and attempts to solve all the knots, and he felt a strange tingle in his stomach; it was a fluttering, fleeting feeling that squeezed his insides gently before traveling upwards and sending warmth to his chest from the inside; it was an euphoric feeling to say the least.

"Florenzo-sama is worried about you as well, Byakuran-sama," Kikyo opted to point out instead of answering the direct question – which had been a demand, more or less, and both of them knew it.

Byakuran shrugged his shoulders at that as his fingers dove deeper into the almost aquamarine hair, tips of the fingers and the tips of his nails brushing and scraping against the back of Kikyo's head.

Byakuran wondered, briefly, if pressing a nail harder against the skin would result in bleeding... or how much of that crimson color would taint his own pale hand.

_Would it feel as good as touching Shou-chan's hair?_

"Hmhm, I wonder why he can't trust his only heir a little more," Byakuran murmured, voice deceptively soft and gentle, as he withdrew his hand from Kikyo's head. There was irritation forming in the back of his mind – directed at his father; that incompetent strategist and ailing parent.

...Ah, he really wanted to see Shou-chan right now.

* * *

"Will you teach me, Shou-chan?"

Shouichi raised his head from the bowl of strawberries his hands held and blinked at Byakuran, not sure what the other was talking about. "Huh?" His flabbergasted expression told that much even without the noise of confusion.

Byakuran grinned at the sight, his narrow, half-lidded eyes looking up at Shouichi with glee as a hand reached out for the overgrown bangs on Shouichi's face to sweep them aside from Shouichi's (beautiful, oh so beautiful) eyes.

"Shou-chan has a thing for technology, right?" Byakuran spoke slowly as he stared up at Shouichi's face from his lying position on the cool grass. "I wanna learn." His hand went down Shouichi's face (which was upside down in his view, how funny), caressing at the flushed skin almost gently, as Shouichi tried to search for words. (It was amusing how easy it was to make Shouichi speechless sometimes, Byakuran thought to himself.)

Even after all these months, he could still get Shouichi flustered like this...

"I... I just like learning, I wouldn't say I am particularly good at anything," Shouichi protested dazedly as his own hand tried to pull Byakuran's hand away but to no avail.

Amused, Byakuran pushed himself up – allowing his hand to fall from the other's cheek – to face Shouichi, blades of grass sliding down the back of his shirt slightly in response to the movement.

"But you are," Byakuran coaxed as he shuffled closer to the redhead whose hands held onto a physics textbook. Astronomy, perhaps. "I have seen Shou-chan's calculations, and they're amaingly precise." Byakuran's hand pulled the book off from Shouichi's lap, and then he proceeded to do the thing every booklover hated when there was no bookmark – he closed the book.

"Byakuran-san, I was reading that...!"

"There it is, Shou-chan's anger," Byakuran sing-songed, tilting his head nonchalantly at the narrowing of the other's eyes as a cold breeze went past them, fluttering and ruffling their wrinkles and grass-stained clothes.

Shouichi shuddered, wrapping his self-made shirt tighter around himself. "You're unfair, Byakuran-san," he muttered despite his chattering teeth.

Despite the green grass, summer was already gone. Autumn had taken its place, and this could be seen from the withering flowers and their yellowish and dried petals that would have crumbled at the softest of touches.

Perhaps it was this early autumn day and its atmosphere that had Byakuran take in every aspect of Shouichi; not only his outer appearance, but his behavior and little quirks that made Shouichi the person he was.

There was something interesting about how _ordinary_ Shouichi seemed but how he was anything but that, and Byakuran found himself falling deeper into the trap that was Irie Shouichi. Not that he minded terribly – Shouichi made his life bearable and _colorful_ again.

If he had to be cheesy (and God knew he tried), he would say that Shouichi was like a rose – bright yellow or perhaps pink – that made his world burst with color and fragrances he had never seen or smelled. Refreshing, that's what Shouichi was to him.

"Shou-chan, you're the unfair one," Byakuran murmured, his expression softening as he put the book down before crawling towards his friend and grasping Shouichi's head from the cheeks. Very red cheeks, he could add.

Thumbs moved over the cheekbones where most of the red and warmth had gathered, the pad of his thumb brushing gingerly against the skin – at which Shouichi reacted by letting his eyelids slide down a little bit, one hand futilely outstretched for his book.

"How am I-" Shouichi started, his breath hitching when Byakuran leaned close enough for their breaths to mingle. "How am I being unfair?"

Such an innocent question, and yet it provoked much more than just innocent reactions in Byakuran.

"Shou-chan knows," he murmured as he approached Shouichi more, climbing into his lap agilely like a flexible cat and settled on his spot as he stroked at Shouichi's face gingerly. Needily. Greedily.

Like a greedy little child that had found something to play with.

"So unfair," Byakuran continued lowly, nose barely touching the side of Shouichi's nose, and his lips ah so very close to Shouichi's. Byakuran's hands could feel the change in heat of Shouichi's cheeks.

This desire burning in his chest... Byakuran wasn't sure what to make of it. It wasn't anything he was supposed to feel for a friend, he was sure of that.

"Byakuran-san?" Shouichi's lips moved, trembled, and Byakuran's smile (and that insisten spark of desire fluttering in his stomach) grew.

Was it wrong to feel this way?

...Since when did he care about that? Byakuran snorted at danger and the self-righteous talk of what was right or wrong.

Even if it was wrong, Byakuran would turn that wrong into right; he could do that, he had the power to do it.

Pressing in, Byakuran's lips met with Shouichi's, neither pair of pink flesh letting out a single complaint. A tentative kiss meant for testing waters soon deepened, albeit clumsily, and Shouichi was pressed down against the grass with Byakuran pressing against him.

Sparks of desire went through Byakuran, and he could hardly contain himself, the wet sounds and breathy gasps from Shouichi's mouth enticing him more than they should have had any right to. Byakuran tilted his head slightly, demandingly, before running a tongue on Shouichi's wet lower lip and goading Shouichi to part his lips-

Shouichi turned his head abruptly, breaking the lip lock, and gasped for air; it was only then that Byakuran opened his eyes and saw how burning red Shouichi's cheeks had turned and how red bangs had fallen over Shouichi's glasses and eyes, curtaining Shouichi's green hues from him partially.

"Shou-chan?" he breathed out – the kiss had stolen his breath away only for a moment or two and he still was struggling to breathe correctly.

Shouichi's writhing form underneath him stiffened at the call as Shouichi too tried to catch his breath, chest rising and falling along with his quick, frantic breaths.

"Byakuran-san..." Shouichi's wet, saliva-coated lips parted, and Byakuran's eyes trained on their languid and clumsy movements.

Shouichi may be just a commoner to anyone else, but he was the most beautiful thing Byakuran had ever set his eyes on; the more he got to know Shouichi, the more beautiful the other became in his plain and austere living conditions, not to mention the reserved nature that hig away his easily flustered side.

Peeling layers after layers, Byakuran had come to the conclusion that Shouichi was much more intriguing than those empty-headed advisors and princes and princesses from other kingdoms, who were only concerned with riches and status. Selfishness prevailed, and it was boring.

"I don't-" Shouichi turned his head as he wrenched a hand between their bodies and tried to push Byakuran up and away from him. "Don't," he pleaded quietly, eyelids sliding down again. Shouichi's facial expression screamed vulnerability and wariness – a combination which Byakuran thought looked endearing on Shouichi's round-shaped face.

Byakuran's delicate brows knitted together at those words; he had always been awful at taking a no for an answer.

"You want it, Shou-chan," he pointed out arrogantly but with a hint of fondness, bringing a finger to Shouichi's warm cheek and pressed it against the skin.

"You assume too much," Shouichi argued, eyes narrowing into slits behind the skewered glasses as he remained carefully still underneath Byakuran's body. "I was taken aback by... your..." Shouichi's words and expression faltered as his cheeks heated up some more out of visible embarrassment.

_Cute. He's so cute._ And he was all Byakuran's.

Shouichi was so clearly unsused to this – _this _referring to flirting, kissing, anything beyond simple gestures, really – and Byakuran found it amusing and perfect. Such honest responses...

"Is it really that bad, Shou-chan?" Byakuran purred, fingers caressing at Shouichi's heated and flushed face. Even though he appeared as aloof and nonchalant as he ever was, the heavy pounding of his heart inside his chest was undeniable; the kiss had had such an unexpected effect on him too.

Shouichi's eyes snapped fully open as he threw an incredulous look at Byakuran, hand pushing Byakuran's away irritably.

"Be a little mindful of your position, Byakuran-san," Shouichi muttered, at which Byakuran giggled. Oh, so it wasn't the fact that Byakuran was a guy and his best friend hat bothered Shouichi but Byakuran's position as the prince? How absolutely wondrously ridiculous.

As far as he was concerned, Shouichi was far more noble than those silly girls clad in colorful gowns that painted their faces in outrageous colors with a soul life as rich as that of a dead centipede's.

"Shall I compare thee to a summer day-" Byakuran quoted almost mockingly, and Shouichi smacked Byakuran's stomach as well as he could from his awkward position.

"No. Now get off."

Byakuran's airy, lilting chuckle was the only response Shouichi got, and the redhead's cheeks reddened until they rivaled the color of his hair.

_Shou-chan, you're so adorable in your innocence. _

* * *

The cold winds of winter whirled through the streets and narrow alleys, and Shouichi shuddered as he sauntered down the streets with cape draped over himself and a hood covering his face from people's eyes.

His brown, leather boots barely kept the toe-numbing cold from getting his toes and feet, and a vague sense of numbness was starting to climb up his toes to his feet, which Shouichi tried to fight by halting and shaking his legs every now and then or by lightly bouncing his feet, rising up to his toes and back down before repeating the action multiple times.

His gloveless fingers were frigid and nails were starting to turn purplish when he lightly jogged around one of the many corners, eyes staying on the narrow side street as he expertly and purposefully jogged to the place which he had come to label as the Garden of Memories. It was a terrible, _horrible _actually, name and straight from cliché romance novels authors were producing with growing passion more and more these days.

Shouichi raised his head slightly, eyes away from the stony pavement and up towards the frozen gate pillars.

Relief filled him – the garden was still there after all. The rumors of it being demolished were false, after all.

He slipped past the rusty gates, ignoring the ear-shattering sound that left the hinges, and jogged lightly into the deeper part of the garden where the thick oak trees covered the clearance, forming a formidable roof through which sun filtered through during summer time.

During winter, though, the trees still formed a hide-out from the outside world, and Shouichi was sure that this was one of the reasons Byakuran had initially chosen the place to run to from his royal duties.

Shouichi smiled a small smile despite the growing numbness in his limbs before walking up to the place he and Byakuran had first met, the place where the anemones had once grown.

It had happened well over a year ago, Shouichi mused as he seated himself, not minding the snow that immediately clung to his behind and seeped through his clothes as moisture.

As much as he disliked the informality that had quickly descended between them – between a commoner and _a prince_ – he couldn't say that he disliked Byakuran as a person. Byakuran's heart-throbbing smile was enough to turn Shouichi's mood to an instantly better one even though that smile hid so many secrets behind it – and while Shouichi loved puzzles, in people that trait was outright annoying.

But that damn smile, it did wonders to him. It made his face soften and lips curl up, and nowadays it even made his heart beat faster and unevenly in his chest. Ever since that... _kiss_, Shouichi had not been sure how to act around the other. At first he had been confused and a tad angry at Byakuran's overbearing attitude of how stealing kisses was no big deal. To him, it probably hadn't been as big deal as it had been to Shouichi.

Even now, the memories made him annoyed and frustrated. While the sexuality part was not all that surprising – he had realized his orientation very early and accepted it with little difficulty – the social acceptability was the thing that weighed down on Shouichi the most.

This friendship, too, was unacceptable, not to mention the deeper relationship that-

Shouichi's thoughts got cut off when a strong, freezing gale ruffled his hair and body, the shudders growing stronger as the minutes ticked by.

Where was Byakuran-

_Could it be trouble at palace? _Shouichi wondered anxiously as he rubbed his hands together in futile attempt at preventing them from turning numb in the icy weather.

He knew Byakuran tended to skip lessons for the sake of meeting up with him, but Shouichi also knew how incredibly smart the beautiful prince _was_ – Shouichi could hold up pretty decent conversations about astronomy and its recent developments with Byakuran, much to the redhead's own amazement.

(Never mind the fact that Shouichi was not an expert on astronomy either.)

Shouichi waited for a long time, alone with his thoughts.

But Byakuran never came.

* * *

It was getting worse.

"Damn..." Byakuran cursed, very uncharacteristic for him, as his palms pressed against his temples in futile attempt at soothing his skull-cracking headache. It was relentless, this ache pounding inside his head; it felt like his head would crack open any moment now, skull giving in to the pounding against the bone.

Visions flashed behind his closed eyelids – visions of another world, another life.

Another destiny.

Voices in his head, whispering, taunting him with promises, tainting him and pulling him into the darkness.

Byakuran inhaled sharply as something crawled and curled in his chest, something he didn't recognize at first since it was such an odd emotion for someone as privileged as him.

Fear.

Was this actual fear?

_Flashes of crimson red on a white canvas. Fluff of brown. Bright red hair and eyes that are borderline emerald, shining with unshed tears and pain that makes Byakuran's heart drum faster in excitement. _

No, this wasn't fear, Byakuran decided as he groaned at the throbbing pain that traveled through his skull.

_Maniacal laughter. His body trembled with raw power as his hand squeezed hard, hard enough to break the tiny brunet in his hold. _

Adrenaline rushed through his veins as the images came to his mind with increasing speed, making him restless and all too aware of the sweaty sheets underneath him and the cold air of air conditioning.

These pictures in his head were dangerously vivid, and Byakuran was not stupid enough to believe them to be an illusion, no matter what anyone would say if they knew of these images dancing behind his tightly closed eyelids.

_Shou-chan is there, too, looking up at him with panicked green eyes, and Byakuran SMILES – because he can, and because Shou-chan has always been too precious of a toy to let him go to waste._

The whispers in his ears grow in volume, and Byakuran listened to them attentively, as much as he could over the unbearable throbbing inside him.

He remembered these voices, and he remembered these flashbacks that were not quite flashbacks from his childhood when he had wandered around with an empty daze in his purple eyes. These voices had accompanied him, lulled him to sweet sleep, but he had ceased to hear them for quite some time after that first encounter with Shouichi.

But now, now he could hear and see them again.

Byakuran licked at his dried lips before swallowing the forming lump in his throat, a thin sheet of sweat on his flushed forehead and face. Warm. Too warm. Like he had just ran half a marathon. Like his world was melting and then being reformed.

Byakuran exhaled, and he felt himself trembling as his mind stretched beyond the universes, _wolrds_, and memories turned clearer, _sharper _in colour inside his mind. Bright red, dark green, pure white. Blinding orange.

"_Tsunayoshi-kun." _

That name rang a bell in his weary mind, but he couldn't bother to remember now as his memories became muddled, mixed in within these foreign memories from which he idly tried to find something... or someone.

"_Shou-chan."_

Bingo.

* * *

The next time Shouichi met Byakuran, he couldn't help but feel that there was something terribly, terribly wrong with the older man – young as they were, they _were_ men, undoubtedly – and that feeling only strengthened the longer the moments stretched on between them.

Maybe it was the silent, lingering gazes that Byakuran shot him in his direction as they huddled under the trees, Shouichi talking in muted tones about nonsensical things – about his work, about his interests in street music, about _anything_ he could come up with, really – that first alerted Shouichi that something had changed in Byakuran.

He looked paler, too, but Shouichi blamed that on the coldness that clung to every bone and limb, every crook and dip of the body.

Byakuran silently inspected him as he talked, those violet eyes dark and attentive and _there's something wrong with those eyes._ Shouichi stammered a bit in his soliloquy when he noticed the intensity of Byakuran's gaze – it was _burning _him despite the icy wind that whipped them mercilessly – and his cheeks flushed a deeper shade of red.

Byakuran's lips parted slightly when Shouichi's voice faded away, and the redhead instinctively leaned closer to hear better, but instead of talking, Byakuran merely smiled – _grinned_ – at him – it was a painful smile, so full of _everything_ that Shouichi couldn't understand.

Or perhaps – he didn't want to understand.

But he did.

And perhaps that was why he made no effort to move away when Byakuran closed the little distance between them, arms wrapping around Shouichi's thin and malnourished body to pull him against Byakuran's chest, and then their lips met in a dangling mess of emotions and skin contact, which stole their breaths away from them but neither wanted to stop, neither wanted to let go – one more desperate than the other.

Shouichi thought, his heart quivering in his chest when they pulled away as oxygen ran out, that _this could have been everything_.

But in this world, princes and commoners all had their rightful places – and Byakuran's place was definitely not by his Shouichi, nor was Shouichi's place by his Byakuran.

* * *

The spring sun filtered into the workshop through the blinds as Shouichi took off his hastily buttoned shirt before carelessly placing it over the back of one of the few chairs in the large room filled with spare parts and tools. Dust floated in the air, particles of said substance visible to Shouichi's eyes in the glimmering sunlight.

The early hours of morning were always the best ones for him to work, although he rarely got up at that time – most of the time it was right at the dawn when he'd realize that another sleepless night had gone by, and then he'd somehow force himself to sleep if he already wasn't in the process of falling asleep on one of the desks in the workshop.

The routine was good and put him at ease, but today he was up, and his fingers itched to tinker, to play with tools, with winding wheels, regulators and all kinds of screws a watch was made of.

The dents in the round-shaped pieces of metal and whatnot left marks on his thumbs and other fingers as he worked, diligently, in is lonesome hall. So focused was he in his job that he didn't even take notice of the bustling and buzzing sounds from the outside as the small city came to life, slowly but surely.

However, he did hear the creak of the door as Spanner entered the workshop, and while Shouichi didn't raise his head, he did nod his head in acknowledgement at his best friend and roommate.

Spanner murmured his good mornings, the sleeping cap still hanging over his head and the pajamas still hanging loosely on Spanner's thin body.

Shouichi could hear the cracks of Spanner's bones as the blond stretched himself, and the redhead winced.

It was just another day in the watchmaker duo's life.

* * *

"Did you read yesterday's newspaper?"

Spanner's question broke the silence that had fallen between them after the frugal and austere thing called breakfast. Shouichi lifted his head up from the watch he had been fixing, reluctantly setting his tools aside as he turned to Spanner.

"No." Shouichi blinked at the inquisitive look in Spanner's eyes, quite confused as to why the other would ask something like this. Something as mundane.

"Figured." Spanner hummed against his lollipop before throwing the mentioned newspaper to Shouichi, who managed to catch it despite his frantic flailing.

"Page 15," Spanner said helpfully as the stick of a lollipop moves around in lazy, languid movements, and the blond leaned back on his chair, crystal blue eyes intent on Shouichi.

In confusion, Shouichi blinked at Spanner before he flattened the newspaper, smoothing the wrinkles, and flipped to the fifteenth page as Spanner had instructed.

In the page there was a photograph that took at least half the page, unnecessarily so, and Shouichi's eyes widened more as a familiar figure stood out to his eyes from the photograph.

Byakuran.

The rest of his family was there, too, of course; the King, and perhaps an aunt and a cousin, but what (or rather, who) attracted Shouichi's attention was the petit _girl_ standing next to Byakuran, her arm wrapped around his, in all-white, fluttering dress that hugged her narrow waist tightly. The girl's deep, dark blue eyes shone, and her happiness was evident but contained in her dimples and curve of her lips, and Shouichi's heart hammered in his chest a little too hard in reaction.

Not because she was pretty, but because of the ring on her left ring finger that the photo had managed to catch. Although, he supposed, she was rather beautiful with her deep blue eyes and charmingly dark hair with greenish glow (if you looked hard enough).

Shouichi eyes glanced at the text below the picture, his heart drumming louder and louder inside his chest, and he swallowed thickly as sweat formed on the back of his neck.

Byakuran had a fiancée.

* * *

"_Byakuran, what's wrong?" _

_A weary smile played on his lips as he patted her on the head. "It's nothing, Yuni-chan." _

_Blue eyes twinkled with worry. "..."_

"_Haha, don't look like that, Yuni-chan! I'm just tired, that's all~." _

_Yuni leaned up on her toes and he tiny hands cradled Byakuran's head between them. "Byakuran-" _

_He pecked her lips to shut her up. "Don't worry, Yuni-chan. It'll be okay." _

* * *

"Yuni-sama is pregnant."

Shouichi didn't pause his actions; he didn't even lift his head up at that piece of news, no matter how much he felt the knife in his heart sink deeper.

He had not met Byakuran after the day he had realized that Byakuran was engaged – and that had been months ago, but Shouichi couldn't stop thinking about him, couldn't stop remembering that last kiss that had been full of need and such pure want that-

Shouichi pursed his lips at the memories that tugged at his mind insistently. "So I have heard," Shouichi replied calmly as he worked on the newest model of watch.

No matter how much he told himself that it didn't matter, his hands shook terribly, betraying his own lies.

No matter how many times he told himself that it really shouldn't matter, because Yuni-san was Byakuran's _wife_, it still hurt. That pain still continued to linger in his heart, and that insatiable want clutched at something much less concrete than heart.

A wet smacking sound told him that Spanner had taken the lollipop out from his mouth. "You okay?" Spanner's voice was steady and quiet, like a comforting breeze in the middle of a hot summer day.

Shouichi forced a smile onto his lips, but refrained from looking up at Spanner.

"I'm okay."

Because commoners really should know their place – and meddling with royalty always led to more trouble than it was worth.

_But,_ Shouichi thought sadly, _it's not fair._

* * *

Shouichi visited _their_ garden often, whenever his work allowed him. It was summer now, sun high in the sky and radiating scorching heat down on people of this kingdom, and the red-haired watchmaker was lying on the green grass of the garden, the scent of anemones and other flowers thick in the air. Bees and other insects buzzed about, the sounds almost enough to lull Shouichi sleep.

It was foolish and childish to keep on waiting for Byakuran at the place he knew the other wouldn't come – and even if he did, Shouichi was sure Byakuran would have forgotten what had transpired between them once.

That easy camaderie they had had, those quiet moments where they could just _be_ without any worries.

Shouichi smiled wistfully as his head lolled to a side, blades of grass tickling his cheek when he made even the slightest movements.

All in all, it was a serene afternoon, and Shouichi, for once, felt at peace. Like he always did at this place – or was that a foolish thing to say? He was barely twenty, much of life still to be experienced and naive to an extent – like Spanner had often told him, he really needed to realize that not everything was the same on the inside as it was on the outside.

A rustling sound from the edge of the garden managed to startle him, but not enough for him to force himself up. Shouichi's eyes were now fully open, and his ears strained to listen whether more noises would reach them.

And more rustling – or thumping of feet? - followed, this time making Shouichi pull himself up into a sitting position and to turn his head towards the noise – brows furrowed in caution, lips pressed together tightly and ready to defend himself if it was the garden's owner.

Which was unlikely, considering how that person had died. (Or so Byakuran-san had once told him.)

Speak of the devil.

Shouichi felt like he had been punched in the gut when his eyes landed on the person who was approaching him – hands stuffed in his pockets, white hair ever so wild and spiked up, violet eyes ever so unreadable.

But something – and Shouichi couldn't put his finger on exactly what that was – felt off. Instinctively, Shouichi tensed as he waited for Byakuran to say anything. _Anything_. A greeting? An apology? An explanation? One of those would have sufficed.

Byakuran's violet eyes peered down at Shouichi as the man adjusted the collar of his uniform, lace and extravagant laces adorning sleeves and gold lines trailing the white jacket, before crouching down like a panther ready to strike.

"Byakuran... san?"

Byakuran's eyes gleamed, bangs of his hair trickling over them as a gust of wind breezed by them, and Shouichi shivered.

When Byakuran spoke, the quiet, soft tone he used was enough to render the redhead speechless. "I love you, Shou-chan." Byakuran didn't give Shouichi any time to respond to this proclaim – statement, really – and _pounced_ on his friend, lips meeting lips in a kiss of desperate want.

Startled, Shouichi couldn't help but accommodate Byakuran's demanding kiss by tilting his head back and allowing access, Byakuran's hands pushing Shouichi onto the ground with unneeded force, hands immediately trailing over Shouichi's chest once Shouichi's back met the grass again.

Shouichi couldn't stop himself from clinging to Byakuran, arms wrapping around Byakuran's shoulders in attempt to bring his friend (crush, _love_, whatever) closer – and yet it wasn't enough, not even when their chests pressed against one another, not even when they could feel the heat of the other's body, not even when their mouths were stuck in a dance of tango, exotic and fast and dizzying.

Byakuran's hands wandered, cool hands warming up Shouichi's flesh with each touch until the redhead felt himself burn with want and need, and Shouichi broke out from the kiss, gasping and anxious to breathe.

Peppering kisses on Shouichi's face and neck, Byakuran's hands slithered underneath Shouichi's shirt, hands devotedly working to rub at Shouichi's stomach and skin until the redhead was a panting mess underneath the prince, who wanted nothing more than to claim Shouichi all to himself – soul, body, _everything else, _including these wonderfully high-pitched cries of Byakuran's name as Byakuran made sweet love to Shouichi's body.

"I love you, Shou-chan," Byakuran's voice whispered, time after time, insistent and breathless and needy for Shouichi's trust in those three simple, at times overrated, words.

And after all was said and done, Shouichi's clothes shed and body covered in thin sheet of sweat and semen, Shouichi whispered, "Me too."

* * *

It was not long afterwards their secret rendezvous in the garden thick with anemones that Yuni disappeared. Mysteriously. No sign whatsoever.

Shouichi felt disconcerted about it, and guilt prickled his mind like a stack of needles. It was a strange feeling because as far as he was concerned, there was no need to feel _guilt _of all emotions-

Except that there _was_.

Byakuran had cheated on Yuni in such a cruel way, and Shouichi had been the-

But there was no way Yuni had known of it.

Or else the whole kingdom would have heard of the scandal...

But that did not explain why Byakuran had not visited him, not even once, after that time he had proclaimed his love for Shouichi in such an overly forceful manner.

These weeks following that incident were filled with nothing but dread for Shouichi – and a little bit of self-hatred, for giving into his fragile want and shallow emotion.

* * *

"I love you," Byakuran whispered as his lips trailed over Shouichi's neck, warm breath tickling at the redhead's neck. "I love you," Byakuran repeated almost reverently before kissing the skin once, twice, thrice – until they both lost count of the kisses.

Shouichi's hand fisted Byakuran's pure white shirt, torn between pulling the prince closer and pushing him away, at the same time.

"Byakuran-san," Shouichi mumbled softly as Byakuran's lips trailed down to his collarbone, "we should stop this..."

Byakuran didn't bother answering as he held Shouichi close, bare hands pressing on bare back and _feeling _the skin – just like that day many weeks ago.

An anemone flower hung loosely in Shouichi's hair, tucked carelessly behind his ear – _it looks good on Shou-chan, that flower, _Byakuran had murmured – and it nearly fell when Shouichi tilted his head to a side, cheeks flushed further when Byakuran lazily nibbled on his collarbone area, teeth marking his territory.

"Why?" Byakuran's lips moved against Shouichi's skin before he lifted his head up to look down at Shouichi's flustered expression. Violet eyes glowed with tender light, something that never ceased to amaze Shouichi and make his stomach flutter almost painfully.

"Why should we stop?"

Byakuran really was like a small child sometimes, but his body that was pressing down on Shouichi's definitely wasn't a child's body, and Shouichi got distracted by the sheer warmth radiating from the rippling muscles hidden underneath layers of white clothing.

"We've already come this far, Shou-chan," Byakuran murmured, pale lips curving into a mischievous smile as his fingers rub at Shouichi's lower back, eliciting quiet but audible sounds of pleasure. "It's too late to go back now, isn't it?"

Shouichi trembled in Byakuran's hold as his mind went pleasantly blank once Byakuran's lips descended on him once more – sucking, nipping, _burning_ him with kisses of utmost desire until he was writhing with immeasureable need.

"Byakuran-san," he gasped as his body arched, toes curling as wet fingers moved into him and _probed, _his face flushed as he held onto Byakuran, nails digging through the fabric on Byakuran's shoulders. "Byakuran-san..."

"I love you, Shou-chan," Byakuran murmured tenderly, but Shouichi thought he saw something darker flash in amethyst-like hues, something foreboding.

But it must have been his imagination.

Byakuran-san was gentle, if not unreasonable, to him, after all...

* * *

Three months after Yuni's disappearance, the King died.

The kingdom, naturally, held a proper mourning – the King had been good to the people; he had not dragged the country into unnecessary wars and politics had remained _relatively_ clean from scandals, although occasional accusations of adultery flew around the palace.

Shouichi, of course, was also affected by this, though it had more to do with his personal connection to the prince of the Royal Family than his respect for the late King.

Speaking of that particular prince, their meetings had multiplied from once a week into twice and then thrice – Byakuran was avaricious when it came to hogging Shouichi to himself and marking the redhead in the most noticeable ways and simply devouring him until Shouichi lost it completely, coming undone with ever so loud screams.

But that avarice was not limited to the physical side of him – it extended all over, and Byakuran's need to know about Shouichi's life was shocking and unfaltering, and made Shouichi feel _treasured._

Not that Spanner didn't treasure him as a friend, as a workmate – quite the opposite; Shouichi was sure they were both each other's safety and sanity both financially and mentally, and he appreciated it just as much as he knew Spanner did.

But there was something addictive about the _way_ Byakuran looked at him like he could see through to his soul; like Shouichi was standing before him, bare of all things that weighed him down and pulled him under the veil of thick boredom of normalcy, of routine. It was as if Byakuran could see him for who he was and not for the circumstances he was in – and _that_, that was so painfully refreshing, _invigorating_ even.

It was one of the reasons that made Shouichi so attracted to Byakuran; he knew this even as he watched Byakuran sitting on the autumn grass in the garden, white hair covering those purple eyes from view and lips pursed into a tight line that Shouichi had rarely if ever seen on that pallid face.

"Byakuran-san..." Shouichi murmured as his hand pressed onto Byakuran's shoulder, the white fabric soft under his touch. He wondered briefly why Byakuran wasn't wearing black – a show of mourning, after all – but he dropped that thought quickly, knowing Byakuran never bent to the customs or rules people enforced on him. "Are you alright, Byakuran-san?"

Byakuran remained silent, though he leaned towards Shouichi's touch ever so slightly, white hair swaying as he lifted his head up to look at Shouichi with eyes that reflected nothing, and that look made something inside Shouichi ache; that look reminded him of all those times he had watched himself from the mirror when he had been thirteen, turning fourteen, learning to live without his father and mother, without _anyone._

Byakuran said nothing; those eyes said nothing – and Shouichi swallowed thickly as he inched closer to Byakuran, grass staining his ripped pants as he shifted until he was close enough to feel Byakuran's breath on him.

The silence unsettled him for many reasons, but he ignored those as he moved a hand to cup Byakuran's cheek, and Byakuran leaned into the touch hungrily as though he had been craving for it for a long time.

"I'm-" Shouichi started but a defiant shake of Byakuran's head quieted him. _Don't say it _was the obvious message, and Shouichi shut his mouth in response. Empty condolences hardly ever helped; he should know it, too.

Byakuran's eyes looked at him, _really_ looked at him, but the void in those hues remained. All-consuming feeling that was not grief nor agony nor anything else Shouichi connected to the loss of a loved one.

It was... strange.

Something flickered in Byakuran's eyes that made Shouichi's fingers come to a halt on Byakuran's cheek, frozen on their places as he inspected the abyss that was Byakuran's gaze.

_Cold_, like the frozen lakes in winter, like the frost on the windows when the cold nights assaulted the land.

Then Byakuran's hands shot up, gripping Shouichi from his hips before pulling the redhead violently closer, at which Shouichi yelped loudly as he nearly collided with Byakuran's chest. "B-byakuran-san?"

Hands tightened around Shouichi as Byakuran's nose dove into the auburn locks and took a sharp, audible inhale as fingers dug into Shouichi's pants tighter.

"Shou-chan, Shou-chan," Byakuran mumbled, his lips moving against Shouichi's hair as the prince held his beloved in his arms. His voice sounded strained, _tired_ even – and it contradicted Byakuran's usual chirpy tones so badly that Shouichi couldn't form any words to express his own surprise or worry.

"Shou-chan," Byakuran's tone was all over the place, and there was an audible crack, "do you think this world is right?"

That question took him by surprise, and for the longest moment, Shouichi couldn't answer as he only stared at what he could see of Byakuran whose hair was tickling the side of his neck.

"What... do you mean?" What was up with Byakuran? He didn't know, but he wanted to know, really badly as well.

Byakuran's head stayed on Shouichi's shoulder as he hugged the beloved redhead against himself, chest bumping and limbs entangling; grass rustled beneath them at their movements, and chilly gale sent shivers through Shouichi – or maybe it was the gloomy atmosphere that continued to hover above them.

"This world," Byakuran rasped as he breathed heavily against Shouichi's neck, "is full of hypocrisy." A hand went to Shouichi's side, a finger pointedly poking at the protruding ribs in Shouichi's stomach. "Don't you think so?"

That question was followed by heavy silence as Shouichi contemplated the prince's rasped words with a furrow between his brows. The jab at his ribs had been unnecessary; Shouichi knew what Byakuran meant. The rich got what they wanted, they lived in luxury; the poor barely made a living, they suffered in silence.

"There's no perfect world, Byakuran-san," he said softly, finally raising a hand to stroke Byakuran's white hair, fingers raking through the locks and massaging at Byakuran's scalp gingerly. He may have been bitter about his own predicament a long time ago, but those feelings had been swallowed by the sunshine that enlightened his own personal world – his work, Spanner, and even Byakuran.

"Hypocrisy or not, there's always..." Shouichi shifted as he seated himself better on Byakuran's lap, legs straddling Byakuran now fully as he draped his free arm over Byakuran's broad shoulder, hand pressing between the two shoulder blades and gently massaging the clothed skin. "It's just how it is," Shouichi ended lamely when Byakuran lifted his head up to peer at Shouichi.

"Is it really?" Byakuran's eyes narrowed at him as the man shifted their positions again by pushing Shouichi onto the floor of grass. Green eyes widened behind the glasses when violet hues hovered above them, and this time there was nothing even remotely pleasant in that purple abyss.

Hands pushed Shouichi lower, fully against the ground, before the gripped his hips again, nails clawing at the skin between the waistband of Shouichi's pants and the hem of the cotton shirt.

"Shou-chan, I can change it all," Byakuran said, and it was only now that Shouichi noticed the red rings underneath Byakuran's eyes – a sign of exhaustion or of tears, he wasn't sure which. "No, I _will_ change it, Shou-chan." A hand came to caress Shouichi's pale cheek, fingers dancing over the skin before they curled to cup the side of Shouichi's face and tilting it slightly.

"Will Shou-chan help me?"

Green eyes widened and jaw fell open; Byakuran used this chance to steal an open mouthed kiss from his lover. A thumb caressed at a flushed cheek as a small noise erupted from Shouichi's throat.

"Y-yeah."

* * *

"You're serious?"

Spanner's blank but oddly heated gaze was on Shouichi, those baby blue eyes narrowed the slightest bit as the blond sucked on a strawberry-flavoured lollipop.

Shouichi almost winced as he switched weight between his legs; he knew he was doing a selfish thing by leaving the workshop to Spanner alone, but Byakuran's offer had been... irresistable, and Byakuran had been _very_ persistent during the times when Shouichi hesitated with his agreement.

"Yeah," he said quietly. He scratched his cheek absently as his eyes darted around the vast workshop he had been working in with Spanner all these years, ever since their teen years. His eyes paused at the different-sized wrenches and tuning tools and small hammers scattered on the floor and their work tables – each of them held a precious memory from one point of their odd but functional relationship.

The visible end of the lollipop shifted as Spanner sucked on the treat some more, a silently contemplative expression on his face as he regarded Shouichi with mild curiosity and perhaps even milder dismay.

"I was offered this chance," Shouichi said once more, quietly and seriously, "to become one of their watchmakers." He left out the part where Byakuran had named him 'his beloved tactician' – that was just plain strange, and the redhead still didn't understand why Byakuran called him that.

"The Royal Family's?" Spanner mused out loud, fingers idly playing with the stick of the lollipop as the blond leaned against his oaken table where a few spare parts lay scattered from their earlier session. "I didn't think you had such connections, Shouichi." Spanner's voice held no accusatory tone, but Shouichi felt a nasty twinge in his chest regardless; really, he was _practically_ abandoning the years of friendship with Spanner for just this one measly job, for this one measly _prince_-

Shouichi told himself that it wasn't about Byakuran at all, and the unsettling storm in his stomach seemed to calm down at that reassurance – even though there was that omnipresent swell in his heart whenever Byakuran came to his mind.

"I don't," he said slowly, apologetically to Spanner and with a smile that was all too forced, "it's just that one of our customers was apparently loosely connected to one of the advisors and somehow the rumour ended up reaching the prince." And that was the truth – though Shouichi _had_ mentioned that he was a clockworker to Byakuran during one of their less sexual but no less intimate encounters.

Spanner's delicate eyebrows went higher on the ever-so-serious face, pale cheeks hollowing as he sucked on the lollipop thoughtfully. "And yet it's you who gets picked," Spanner noted, but there was no bitterness in his voice that Shouichi could detect. "Good for you, Shouichi." And then Spanner's thin lips rose into a smile that spoke of genuine joy for his friend.

Shouichi returned the smile, glad that Spanner wasn't offended that he was going to leave the place for the palace. For Byakuran – but that name wasn't mentioned, it wasn't even breathed out even if the name hung over the air like a persistent fog.

Spanner pushed himself up, opening his crossed arms. "One last hug?"

Shouichi laughed at the suggestion, relieved that their friendship hadn't been received any permanent damage from this all-too-quick decision he had made – all too quick and all too greedy for the want and desire for knowledge and Byakuran – before taking the necessary steps to reach Spanner, only then draping his arms around Spanner in a gesture that was both a thank you and a farewell in the same package.

_Bye bye._

* * *

Byakuran closed his eyes.

"_Will you be my right-hand man, Shou-chan?" _

Inhale. Exhale.

_Auburn hair felt soft under the fingers that were not his; green eyes that were not entirely familiar shone with various emotions. _

"_If that's what Byakuran-san wants." _

His lungs expanded with the air trickling into them before deflating harshly, suddenly, a harsh exhale passing through the perfectly formed nose.

_Another time, another place; those green eyes looked at him that is not him with resentment as the atmosphere crackled with tension and fear._

His eyebrows furrowed, his face tensed. That was not a memory he was looking for. What he was looking for was-

_The brown-haired man reached his hand, blood dripping from him at the movement, in attempt to grasp the ring that no longer served its master; painful gasping and writhing followed._

_That ring, that large ring with intricate decorations with a sign of clam embedded into it; the ring, which now rested on Byakuran's palm. _

_Brown eyes looked at him; determination was there, and fear for his friends had long since dissipated – along with the corpses of his beloved friends and family, of course._

"_I win, Tsunayoshi-kun," Byakuran lilted smugly, his facial muscles tugging his lips into a cruel smile. "This is the 212th time."_

_Brown eyes flashed with apparent confusion – but that was soon gone, along with the rest of his body._

Byakuran opened his eyes as the memory faded from his mind; he forcibly pulled himself back into _this_ universe, back to his current plots that were not so different from his other selves' plans and ploys.

Vongola Rings – the image of that ring burned his mind, ignited the flames of greed that had always been there, under a thick veil of boredom and imprisonment.

Byakuran idly touched the ring adorning his middle finger – the Sky Mare Ring, the memnto of his father, the ring that had never truly belonged that that man – and his lips curved into a tight smile as he thought back to the visions in his head.

Parallel worlds were a funny business, yeah?

* * *

Sawada Tsunayoshi could feel cold sweat on the back of his neck as he stared down at the broken seal on the envelope – the seal of Gesso, the neighboring kingdom.

"What is this?" he questioned out loud from his guardians – or rather, his selected confidants and advisors who also happened to serve him in times where physical power was absolutely necessary – and waved the letter in his hand, the extravagantly neat handwriting strikingly beautiful on the paper.

Gokudera, the bearer of the Storm Ring of Vongola and Tsunayoshi's right-hand man, pushed the glasses on his nose up with his index finger before replying. "I believe it's an invitation to the ball that good-for-nothing bastard is arranging," he grumbled out, face twisting with distaste.

It was a sadly known fact that Gokudera Hayato held unreasonable dislike to anyone above his age – the prince of their closest allied kingdom located in the far west was a good example of this. Poor Dino; Gokudera hadn't _entirely_ meant to misplace his dynamite sticks like that.

Tsuna gave his right-hand man a level-headed gaze, as if pleading him to be nice just this one time. "Hayato," he said, slowly, and Gokudera lowered his head in reverent response.

"Sorry, Juudaime."

Not all guardians were as obedient to Tsuna's levelheaded gazes as Gokudera, however, and this showed.

"Another ball," Rokudo Mukuro snorted from the armchair he had invaded the moment he had bothered to appear in the room, mismatched eyes staring at his manicured nails as he blew at them whenever he didn't make condescending remarks or trade looks with one Hibari Kyouya. "Fifteenth this year, I believe."

Speaking of Hibari Kyouya, the Cloud Ring bearer was standing aloof from a good distance from everyone else, stormy eyes narrowed into slits as he silently regarded everyone with a palpable air of distaste around him.

Tsuna didn't expect him to answer, and so he avoided meeting his piercing gaze. He was _not_ intimidated, per se, but he had bigger things to consider than reading Hibari's various expressions and judging whether he was going to jump on Rokudo Mukuro for the sake of ridding the world of one more former juvenile illusionist slash magician.

"Byakuran again," the young King sighed instead as he brought the letter back for his eyes to study over its contents once more – but there was an eerie sense of foreboding in the back of his mind that he couldn't shake off, and Tsuna had learnt to trust his intuition as the years had passed.

And the disappearance of Yuni, one of the Giglio Nero, had already caused enough disturbance within Vongola's kingdom, and within their neighboring lands.

_Byakuran,_ Tsuna wondered gravelly as his eyes grazed over the finely formatted letter, _what on Earth are you planning?_

* * *

Irie Shouichi was a natural.

Byakuran smiled widely at this realization that he had known all along as he watched from his throne as Shouichi discussed the military plans with the high-ranked admiral and captains of squads with names that sound conspicuously like they came from a trashy romance fiction.

Shouichi was a natural strategist; he knew which paths to take when it came to getting the desirable outcome or at least the least bad one out of all the possibilities, he knew which one would end in mutilated bodies and which one would guarantee almost certain victory.

Of course, this was all hypothetical – this was a mere meeting considering the safety measures and back-up plans in case one of the kingdoms got the outrageous idea of marching into Gesso's lands with the idea of conquering and demolishing.

Byakuran watched as his underlings – his ever loyal _servants_ – tried to prove Shouichi wrong – _no, Irie-dono _(the honorific was spoken with enough contempt to corrode)_, I belive you are wrong_ – with as much success as Glo Xinia (one of his less than decent captains with the intelligence that was impressive if not compared to Shouichi's) had in seducing that poor Chrome Dokuro during the latest ball that had been... three months ago, was it?

Which is to say, the attempt at bringing down Irie Shouichi or even damage his credibility in Byakuran's eyes was a failur – and that was putting it lightly. If anything, Byakuran was mildly impressed by how Shouichi didn't get an anxiety-induced stomach ache in the middle of the meeting, even though he could see the telltale drops of sweat lingering on the side of his beloved's face.

When everything was over and done with, all the needed nuisances gone, Byakuran beckoned for Shouichi to come to him, never standing up from his throne as he smiled a feline-like smile at Shouichi, who warily stepped forward, knees nearly buckling under him.

"I just _knew_ Shou-chan would be good at this stuff!" Byakuran declared the moment Shouichi reached the stairs leading up to the throne, purple eyes gleeful as the auburn-haired young man kneeled down in a habitual show of respect, head held down tensely and awkwardly. Byakuran chuckled – poor Shou-chan just wasn't used to this degree of formality with him.

"I'm not so sure your advisors share the sentiment," Shouichi spoke stiffly from the marble floor, head slowly lifting itself up for him to look at Byakuran perched on the throne. Green eyes flickered – questions burning in those curious hues and something far more sentimental than a mere watchmaker was supposed to hold for a prince.

Byakuran never really cared for 'supposed' realities, however; it was fun tearing those preconceptions down until he got the reality _he_ wanted for _himself._

"You shouldn't mind them, Shou-chan," Byakuran mused as he wiggled his finger in a gesture for Shouichi to get up to the throne with him. "They have not seen even a sliver of your brilliant mind yet." A languid grin tugged his lips higher as Shouichi obediently rose and walked up to Byakuran, hesitantly but nonetheless doing so.

Greedily, slender arms reached for the redhead the moment he was close enough and then tugged Shouichi over to the warm, expecting lap that had been void of Shouichi for too long.

"Flattery will not get you far, Byakuran-san," Shouichi murmured as he turned himself on Byakuran's lap until his shoulder leaned on Byakuran's and his face facing Byakuran partially, legs awkwardly tangled with the prince's.

Byakuran smirked wolfisly in response, his hand slithering over to Shouichi's thigh and pausing there for a moment. The throne room was empty – but that didn't mean they couldn't be interrupted any time now, and Byakuran wasn't going to lie and claim that the thought wasn't exciting in the least.

It was time for Yuni-chan to be replaced, after all – the proper amount of time had already passed, but most of all, his patience had come to an end.

Shouichi's sudden intake of breath as Byakuran's fingers stroked his inner thigh filled the silence. "It gets me _everywhere_, Shou-chan," Byakuran lilted smugly as he pressed his lips against the flushed cheek Shouichi was all but offering to him. "_Everywhere_," he mumbled against Shouichi's skin.

He thought about Genkishi of a particular world – of that undying loyalty, of that utterly foolish desire to help Byakuran get _everything_ – and dark webs of sadistic pleasure formed in his mind, spiders of carnal desires running about in the corners.

Yuni-chan had her own uses still, but to the world, she was dead – gone with the chilly winds.

But Shou-chan was there, _would_ be there in Yuni-chan's place, and Byakuran couldn't say he disliked the change in the least.

* * *

The ball, in all of its superb colours and glory, was a successful affair for most part – Byakuran got what he wanted and he got to establish his relationship with Irie Shouichi the way he wanted to – without words but giving oh so many and oh so obvious hints about how things were between the lowly commoner and the King.

As expected, all eyes were on them – some curious, some absolutely enraged, some shocked, all sorts of varying emotions and reactions went through the guests of both the Gesso kingdom and the neighboring ones.

Shouichi had been more than displeased, but he had said nothing about it; Byakuran only knew this because Shouichi's eyes revealed _everything_.

Well, and a few memories from those other worlds did help things...

* * *

Sawada Tsunayoshi closed his eyes as he leaned his chin on the backs of his hands, a few strands of hair covering his eyes from the view of his guardians as the silence hung between them like a heavy fod in the air.

"I can't believe it," Gokudera started with a spat that hardly contained the anger that boiled beneath his skin. "Byakuran really found _him._" His voice shook with dismay and surprise, and Tsuna couldn't blame him, not at all, especially since Tsuna felt shaken up as well, though he did far better job at hiding that than Gokudera.

Even Yamamoto, the bearer of the Rain Ring, bore a troubled look on his face as he stood silently by Gokudera's side, hands stuffed in pockets and posture slumped but alert as if he expected someone burst in to assassinate Tsuna.

It wouldn't be the first time that had happened, to be honest, and probably not the last, either.

"Is it really true, though, Tsuna?" Yamamoto asked, a thoughtful expression on his face as he mulled over what had happened at the ball they had gone to. Byakuran's ball, to be more precise, where all the pastel colours had taken over the white for once, pale red and blue decorations calming and serene.

It had, all in all, felt like Byakuran had tried to fucking hypnotize every guest – that was according to Gokudera, at least, though perhaps he hadn't been that far off since it was only now that they could properly react to the fact that Irie Shouichi had become the victim of Byakuran's fond affections.

Tsuna chewed at the inner skin of his cheek as his head sunk lower until his nose was pressed against knuckles.

"Yeah, there's no mistake," he eventually replied to Yamamoto, reluctance dripping into his voice as he straightened himself and turned around to look out from the large upside-down-U shaped windows, eyes taking note of the dark clouds forming in the east. "It was undeniably Irie Shouichi. That red hair..." he trailed off, fingers squeezing at the bridge of his nose in attempt to settle his nerves.

How had Byakuran found Irie Shouichi?

"This is bad, Tenth."

_Yes,_ Tsuna agreed silently with his figurative right hand. _That it is._

* * *

Irie Shouichi dreamed.

This was not particularly rare – he dreamed often and he even remembered most of the dreams he saw – but this dream verse was something he had never witnessed before.

Everything was white – terribly white – even the goddamn flowers were as white as piles of snow in the middle of the winter, and Shouichi's eyes hurt, the bright pristine colour prickling them like needles.

The scent of anemones wafted in the air; the scent reminiscent of the times in the past, of that one garden, and Shouichi smiled fondly, though guardedly as his eyes caught the flowers sitting atop the solitary desk in the room.

The sheets under his bare legs felt hot and wet with sweat, and Shouichi pulls the covers on his legs away before hesitantly standing up to inspect the conspicuously vacant room, void of any necessities asides from the bed and the desk. It was hot, sweltering even, and warmth clung to his cheeks, his neck, his whole body, as if the room was on fire with invisible flames.

Something about this room felt _familiar_, but he could pinpoint exactly why and how that was possible.

He stood up abruptly. Something was amiss. Green eyes shifted, looking at every corner of the room, as his heart thumped agitatedly in his chest.

A sharp stabbing sensation in his right wrist made him look down dazedly – _too hot to think, too hot to be up_ – and his eyes widened remarkably at the sight of his wrist wrapped in a white gauze, through which blood was seeping, colouring the white fabric with droplets of red. The wrapped bandage did nothing to the pain, however, and Shouichi grimaced as he flicked his wrist tentatively.

What had happened-

Voices from behind the pale white door that didn't stand out from the walls startled him and caught his attention as he plopped down onto the bed again – the letharfic feeling not only due to the heat of the room.

The door opened with a soft creak, and people stepped in. Teenagers, a baby, and an old man – an odd bunch of people congregating together, Shouichi thought as he stared, wide-eyed, at them, at the people he didn't know-

Wait, no, he did know.

"Irie Shouichi-kun," the elderly man started, wrinkles deepening on his face as he smiled benevolently and kindly at him – and Shouichi wondered why this felt like it had happened before... "How are you today?"

Shouichi frowned and opened his mouth – but no sound came from him no matter how hard he struggled to speak, no matter how he strained the vocal chords within his throat.

The old man smiled, eyes crinkling in response. "That's nice to hear, Irie-kun."

_But I didn't say anything._

The brunet that stood beside the elder man squirmed, and Shouichi shifted his eyes to the boy's guarded, wary face that seemed to glow with anxiety he couldn't understand – but that gravity-defying hair he recognized, and he could feel his jaw drop open with amazement.

_Sawada Tsunayoshi? _

And that elderly man...

_Timoteo, the previous King of Vongola. _'

But Timoteo was already dead – and Tsunayoshi was supposed to be a mean in his early twenties by now, not this... fragile-looking teenager that seemed like he would faint soon. He didn't seem like the person to become the next leader of one of the wealthiest and strongest kingdoms in the world.

Shouichi glanced down again – only now realizing that his arms looked healthier, not as dreadfully and sickeningly pale as they usually did. Nor did it seem like the bones would stick out if he flexed his fingers the wrong way.

He was younger, too, he realized with a startling conclusion. Way before his parents had... had... His mind blanked. What had happened to his parents, again?

"This is Tsunayoshi-kun," Timoteo, the _King_, elaborated with a vague gesture between the two boys, the same strained yet friendly smile on his lips that made Shouichi's uneasiness dissipate a little more, but the questions still remained.

_Tsunayoshi-kun_.

Shouichi's arm twitched anxiously by his side, spasmed even, the pain suddenly intensifying once more and then it shot up his arm. That name, it felt familiar, it tugged string at the back of his mind, it urged him to remember these long-forgotten (but _why _had he forgotten) memories of his past – but they remained contained within his mind.

"Tsunayoshi-kun," Shouichi tried to whisper. His lips were moving, but again, no sound came from him no matter how hard he forced it to.

Somehow, Tsunayoshi's name was significant – the name made his heart flutter nervously, almost hesitantly, like a hummingbird's lithe wings. As if forgetting that name had been very bad.

_Tsunayoshi-kun._

The pain in his arm made him grimace – the stabbing feeling had turned into a frustrating prickling and tingling inside his skin – and he looked helpless at the teenagers and the elderly man for help. The baby on Timoteo's shoulders took in the sight with ease, black eyes ominously worried.

Shouichi stared at the bandages around his wrist, stared at the blotches of red that seeped through the thick fabric, and suddenly he felt faint, like his world had just flipped around from its place, like the sky had crashed and earth had been torn up.

His head exploded.

Figuratively, of course.

* * *

He woke up with a headache that could have been the result of him slamming his head against a brick wall for a hundred times or so – with the difference that he hadn't done anything as stupid and dangerous for his health.

Yet.

His arm throbbed, too. It felt like something had pricked at it during his sleep – like a two-feet antique sword that is still as sharp as the sharpest kitchen knife.

Or as sharp as an injection needle.

That thought made his mind swim and blur curiously, as though it was stirring memories long forgotten, and Shouichi exhaled almost painfully.

His arm throbbed, the pain curling within his blood vessels, and Shouichi's hand, fingers, _arm_ twitched, spasmed even, and-

"Shou-chan is awake." Shouichi's eyes flew open at the sound of Byakuran's voice, and he saw Byakuran's face hovering right above his own, and his heart nearly jumped straight into his throat – fear and anxiety from the dream still curling inside him, and somehow Byakuran's presence did not soothe him like it usually would after bad dreams – dreams of cold nights, dreams of famine and whatnot – and instead of peace, there was a horrid torrent of negativity burning within him.

"Byakuran-san," his dry lips moved to whisper, to acknowledge Byakuran's presence, anyway.

Purple eyes leered at him – so close to Shouichi's own – and Shouichi might have blushed if he weren't so used to Byakuran's eyes on him.

Or – Shouichi frowned a little as he shivered underneath his covers – maybe not so.

Byakuran grinned, brightly, and reached out to brush his hand over Shouichi's forehead, fingers playing with the damp locks of hair for a lingering moment. "Shou-chan has been sick, and I was so very worried," Byakuran crooned, fingers now on Shouichi's temple and absently rubbing at the place.

Shouichi nearly sighed because the touch seemed to soothe his headache down a little bit, and even if he felt strangely anxious, everything was fine now.

"You haven't been here for the whole time, right?" Shouichi asked. Right, this shivering was due to his fever and cold that refused to go away – how long had he been unable to attend to the meetings with Byakuran, the admirals and fellow technicians, weapon designers and other people that didn't matter?

Maybe a week; he really couldn't tell anymore, not when his brain felt fuzzy and that dream still preoccupied his thoughts and stomach.

Byakuran's hand went down to Shouichi's cheek, palm massaging at the sweaty skin, and Shouichi sighed again, eyelids fluttering shut for a moment or two.

"What if I have?" Byakuran's whisper danced across Shouichi's face, and he became aware of how Byakuran's body hovered his, not quite lying on him but not far from it. "Shou-chan knows I'm lost without him, doesn't he?"

This time Shouichi's cheeks do flush, even though he was used to Byakuran's exaggerations, even though he should feel exasperated that Byakuran was there with him instead of attending to his work.

But there's a selfish part of him – selfish, so very selfish – that wanted Byakuran there with him, and that part coerced him to lift his hand up to Byakuran's cold, pallid cheek.

Perhaps it coerced him to lean up to kiss Byakuran, too.

But nothing coerced Byakuran to return the kiss – but he did, anyway, probably because he liked kissing Shouichi, maybe because Shouichi's shows of affection were rare and in between.

There was something, though – something that Shouichi felt like he should remember – _something important._

* * *

When he remembered everything, he nearly dropped his wrench – he nearly tripped over himself, he nearly stumbled down in a painful somersault.

In the end, none of that happened, but he did get a massive migraine that pulsed and throbbed within his mind and urged the memories to return – memories of past, memories which he should have _never_ forgotten about but which he had forgotten anyway and now everyone was a little screwed.

When he had returned to his own quarters – that he shared with Byakuran because the fact that they were lovers was no secret -, he hastily searched for something sharp and long and something that he could use to gouge the thing out from his wrist.

Maybe scissors would work. Would they work?

Shouichi searched, searched, and _searched_ – rummaged, rather – until he found an abandoned pair of scissors near his table – maybe the cleaners had forgotten it there, who know and it didn't matter because he was in a hurry.

Hurry, hurry, Shouichi, _you can't let them have it._ Not even Byakuran.

He needed to destroy it. He needed to.

He plunged the sharp edges of the scissors into his wrist – deep, deeper, until blood flowed and until he groaned and nearly cried out as pain throbbed and pulsated through his wrist and arm.

But he needed to – he needed to get _it __**out.**_ His fingers dove into the mess of blood and torn skin, searching for any sign of the chip that _should_ be there, that Vongola's former King had had inserted in him, into his wrist, somewhere underneath the skin-

-but it wasn't there.

The chip was not _there._

The microchip with information about Vongola and their rings – pretty, powerful, _almighty_ **rings** – was _gone, _and Shouichi panicked – for that was the most sensible thing to do when something none of them had expected to happen happened.

* * *

He didn't even notice the bloodstains he left in the room.

.

He told Byakuran it was an accident with scissors.

.

Henceforth no scissors were to be brought in the vicinity of Irie Shouichi.

* * *

There was something in the air that Shouichi didn't like, and he glanced nervously between the admirals and advisors and Byakuran – anxiety curling in his stomach until he could no longer feel the worried beats of his heart in his chest.

The name from his dream pounded against his skull continuously, mercilessly even – _Tsunayoshi-kun, __Tsunayoshi-kun, Tsunayoshi-kun_ – and Shouichi worried, worried, and worried some more because suddenly he was not sure of Byakuran's intentions anymore.

Suddenly he wasn't so sure of King Florenzo either – suddenly his world seemed like a huge pile of conspiracies that kept mounting one after another.

His chip had gone missing, and he didn't know what to make of it. He remembered – he remembered the reason – he remembered _everything _there was to remember of another plan, of another sneaky attempt at hiding the precious Vongola Rings, of information that was not to fall into another kingdom's greedy, far-reaching hands.

But he couldn't _find _it, and he wondered. He questioned himself, he _doubted_ himself and his memory, but there was no other way to think of it other than-

-Byakuran must have taken it. At some point. He was the _only_ person Shouichi had ever allowed _that_ close – Spanner was another, but Shouichi refused to believe Spanner would cut up his wrist for it.

Speaking of his wrist, there had been one time when he had twisted it badly enough to warrant bandages and support and back then, maybe, that pain hadn't been entirely from the nauseating twist in bones.

He couldn't say he was blind to Byakuran's at times chilly demeanor – he _wasn't_ blind, he saw it lurking behind Byakuran's purple eyes.

He just... ignored it for most part – because surely, surely that was always just his imagination. Byakuran (_Byakuran-san_) was kind, loving, _knowledgeable_ – never, ever cruel or malevolent.

Or so he chose to believe.

* * *

Byakuran would hold him tightly in his arms when no one was watching – or even if they were watching, because honestly, _King gets it all and the world is just his playground and the neighboring kingdoms are shitty playmates._

Byakuran would watch him with amusement and with inexplicable pride when Shouichi came up with yet another mind-boggling tactic – honestly, Shouichi was like the Napoleon of this world, if only much less of a leader and a fighter than a tactician.

Shouichi was brilliant in mind, in everything, and Byakuran treasured him – and even if he were less brilliant than he was, Byakuran still would, because they have always been destined for each other, and hell, Byakuran might even go as far as to say that he loved Irie Shouichi more than anything else in this world.

More than most things, anyway.

(Not more than what the power of _those_ Rings could offer, however – _never_ more than that.)

But Byakuran, as patient as he was, was slowly becoming bored of waiting – he had _waited _and _waited_ and why couldn't he just get it started already?

He was twenty-five, and King of his country, but he wanted _more_.

The world was waiting for the outbreak of his insanity - the world held its breath - and it would have to wait a little more.

A little more of time- and _then_, then he would get what he wanted.

He already had the chip – he already had the information about where the Arcobaleno were located – and he already knew the Rings' locations.

All he needed to do was to prepare his country for the war he was about to launch them into – and that would be easy, oh so easy! It was not as though this country, this kingdom, had ever been specially tolerant towards the people from foreign lands, and it worked for him. Racism, as manipulative as it made him, was a powerful tool when used _right._

In the meantime, Byakuran was content with watching his Shou-chan work so diligently – though, Byakuran often found himself musing, there was _something_ about Shou-chan that had changed. It was not noticeable unless you looked for it – but Byakuran saw it easily, with his knowledge of Shou-chan, and this change often made his lips curl down in dismay.

Stupid, foolish, childish Shou-chan, why must you do this _every_ time?

* * *

The room seemed to blur a bit despite Shouichi's best attempts on focusing his gaze on the table where the newest accessory of war lay – a prototype, but it'd not take long until it would be established into a mandatory use for the military.

It wouldn't be long until war would break out, and Shouichi was sweating and scared and horrified and-

He was twenty-five and well-nourished and his life was supposed to be good, but suddenly he was in the middle of war councils and conferences he had no place in; his world had been turned around yet again, and it was wearing him out.

Shouichi took a deep breath as he staggered over to the table, eyes on the blurred lines of the cylinder-shaped weapon – a flamethrower, if you will, but the quality of the flames it produced was different than the yellow-orange-_red_ flames that naturally existed and formed as a chemical reaction instead of something as absurd and ambivalent as _willpower._

Honestly, Shouichi was interested – in those flames, in this equipment – but _the knowledge of what this was being used for... _

Or would be. Would be, because Vongola's kingdom was still safe despite the ceaseless arguments and counterarguments between them and Byakuran and his Royal Family.

Shouichi closed his eyes, hands pressing against the side of the large oblong table and it took a moment for the wave of dizziness to leave his head.

(So much stress. He didn't know how he managed, honestly, with all this and his stomach aches.)

His hand weakly reached for the flamethrower, and after a moment of fumbling, it met with the cool surface of the weapon that was to be utilized in the cruelest ways possible – and Shouichi regretted as his heart thumped painfully in his chest.

(_What did you think he would do with it, Shouichi?_)

There was disappointment, there was hopelessness in the tender, caressing movements on the round mouth of the flamethrower, and for the first time in a long_long__**long **_time, Shouichi felt his composure cracking as a dry sob escaped his mouth.

(He was alone, thankfully – but he could never suppress that feeling that there was someone watching him with sharp, narrowed eyes that see through _all_.)

* * *

_(A week later, there was a declaration of war.)_

* * *

Generals, captains, lieutenants, and countless corpses filled his sight as he peeked out from one of their bunkers. A moment later he had to close the entrance to the bunker – not because he had been noticed, but because he couldn't stand looking at the blood and torn flesh.

_Get yourself together,_ he told himself as he pinched at his cheeks. _Everyone's counting on you. Tsunayoshi-kun's counting on you._

It was absolutely ridiculous, this quick, foolish and makeshift excuse of a _plan_ that they came up with in less than two days – messenger pigeons and secret codes were involved – but Shouichi knew it was the only chance to _stop_ this thing.

Shakily, his hands folded the yellowed and dirty papers filled with the most intricate war plans Byakuran's generals and advisors had come up with (and admirals, because for some reason even the Navy was and is involved) and then his hands worked to put the papers into a small envelope-shaped bag made of wool and leather.

There was no fool-proof plan, there had never been, but Shouichi knew he had to stop this war from reaching new heights.

For everyone's sake.

For his own sake.

For Spanner's sake and for the sake of those treasured memories in their dust-gathering workshop.

For his parents – for that brave couple who had to give up their child for the sake of hiding _that_ information from enemies _everywhere-_

(as much as Vongola was the strongest, mightiest kingdom

there were always enemies

everywhere

all the time)

-and for the lost parental love he didn't get when he grew up in the slums of this (un)welcoming kingdom.

Perhaps a little bit for Byakuran's sake too – for the Byakuran he knew, for the Byakuran that peppered kisses all over his skin affectionately, for the Byakuran that held his hand and entwined their fingers, for the Byakuran that Shouichi never really understood _enough_.

Shouichi closed his eyes as he strapped the small bag – it was closer to a pouch more than anything else, honestly – onto the messenger bird's leg before setting the white-feathered pigeon.

And then he _prays_ as well as any atheist could when they have nothing else (no one else) to turn to.

* * *

Written letters rested against Byakuran's whiter than white (_whiter than snow_) throne that was currently empty, the King long gone – out in the battlefields, white wings bursting from his back, and laughing _laughing __**laughing because he's so **_CLOSE _**to getting everything he wished for. **_

(Everything – and nothing at all because greed turns everything into nothing in a single beat of a heart, in a single bat of an eye.)

There were letters scattered on the podiom, as well – pieces of paper torn apart, splotches of dark substance that turned paper crispy unlike ink staining the white-white-white paper.

Red-red-red _blood._

And each and every one of those letters – all the ones torn, ripped and even the ones still intact – was addressed to _Sawada Tsunayoshi._

* * *

Once upon a time, two boys met, forgot each other for a while, but after a few years met again and fell in love.

Once upon a time, this love did not overturn the other boy's desire to turn the world around for his ambition.

Once upon a time, there was a desperate attempt as the meek, glasses-wearing boy tried to stop the other boy by coming up with a hasty plan with yet another boy.

Once upon a time, the white-haired boy found out-

Well, you know how this story ends, don't you?

(Spoiler: there's a bush of anemone flowers, a dead baby that would inherit no kingdom, and a despairing dictator.)

* * *

[And underneath the white, looming castle of bones and snow, there's a girl with eyes as blue as the darkest sea, and her hands are joined together in a silent prayer.]

_[God, help us.]_

* * *

**A/N: As an ending note, I would like to thank you for reading such a long oneshot. Feel free to drop a review.**


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